Sunday, April 3, 2016

The Lesson from the Arizona Primary

The word "democracy" is a composite of two Greek
words--"demos", the people and "kratein", to
rule. Democracy is the rule of the people. That is what we keep
saying, and that is what democracy theorists keep telling us. But the
recent primaries in Arizona demonstrate beyond the shadow of a doubt
that our democracy does not consist of the rule of the people.

In the recent Arizona primaries, many voters, especially in
neighborhoods where the majority of people were poor and/or persons
of color, had to wait in line for many hours in order to be able to
exercise their right to vote. The Republican legislature and state
government cut back sharply on the amount of money available for
opening polling places. The number of polling places was reduced.
Hence the long waits.

No doubt the shortage of polling places prevented a number of
citizens from voting as they had planned. Parents needed to pick up
their kids in school. Workers needed to be at work and could not
stand in line for hours. Parents needed to be home to cook dinner for
their children. They needed to be elsewhere to take care of aging
parents. They had other obligations and commitments. There was not
enough time for standing in line for hours in order to be able to
vote.

The decisions of the state government excluded significant numbers of
citizens from being part of "the people." They were
prevented from exercising their citizenship rights; they were
effectively prevented from acting as citizens.

In this situation the people did not rule because the government
decided who was going to be a citizen. It was up to the government to
allow some people to be active citizens and to prevent others from
doing so.

When the government decides who is a member of "the people,"
the people no longer rule. On the contrary the government has the
power to determine the membership of the people. Our Constitution
begins with the words "We the People . . . “ But in Arizona
you need government permission to be a part of that people.

Nor is the regulation of polling places the only technique by which
the government decides who may vote and who may not. Many states have
passed laws that make it much more difficult to vote. In some states
you need to have a birth certificate in order to register as a voter.
Once again the people, people of color, people whose lives are
difficult and often chaotic, are likely to be excluded because they
don't have the needed pieces of paper. Other states require photo IDs
for anyone to go and vote. Photo IDs are hard to come by, especially
for people living in the country, who have transportation challenges,
little money and find it difficult to procure these identity cards
with their picture on it.

“Gerrymandering” is a venerable American expression referring to
drawing the lines of electoral district in artificial ways in order
to deprive some populations of any chance of having an influence in
elections. Drawing districts with smaller pockets of African-American
voters, assures their failure to ever elect an African-American
candidate. By distributing African-American voters over a number of
different districts, their votes are made ineffective unless they
vote for the dominant white candidate. By drawing electoral districts
so as to effectively disenfranchise certain groups, the government,
specifically state legislatures, deprives certain groups of effective
voting rights. Gerrymandering steals the civil rights of targeted
groups.

Our government effectively limits who might have a chance at being
part of the people that rules. Eliminating significant groups from
the electorate it determines what kind of influence voters have on
government. The political interests and goals of upper-middle class
whites are different from those of a more mixed electorate. What
people will want and what they will strive for is seriously shaped by
filtering the membership of the citizenry allowed to vote. The people
do not rule. The government determines in significant ways what
voters will demand.

They then insult our intelligence by telling us that we live in a
democracy where the people rule. Of course, they had their fingers
crossed behind their back when they say so.